Now here’s an interesting one – I write all my copy longhand, yes, pen and paper. I find to write anything decent I need the brain-hand-pen-paper connection. Tapping out words on a keyboard won’t hack it.

Now I know why. A US study has shown that putting pen to paper engages the mind far better than a cursor on the computer screen.

This isn’t just important for old hands like me, it’s crucial for childhood learn ing . Using their hands to form letters has significant effects on a child’s thinking. Handwriting changes brain function and can enhance brain development in the young and the old, too.

Virginia Berninger, a professor of educational psychology at Washington University, US, believes “handwriting – forming letters – engages the mind, and that can help children pay attention to written language.”

Writing by hand can enhance brain function (Image: Getty)

Last year, Laura Dinehart at Florida International University linked good handwriting and academic achievement – children with good handwriting may get better marks because their work is easier for teachers to read. But children who struggle with writing spend too much time producing the letters – and the content suffers.

It seems we stimulate children’s brains by helping them form letters with their hands. Dr Dinehart’s study showed the ones who had good early writing skills did better later on in school. No wonder. To write letters they need to coordinate many parts of the brain.

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“This myth that handwriting is just a motor skill is just plain wrong,” Prof Berninger said. “We use motor parts of our brain, motor planning, motor control, but what’s very critical is a region of our brain where the visual and language come together, where visual stimuli actually become letters and written words.”

You have to see letters in “the mind’s eye” in order to make them on the page, she said. Brain imaging shows that the activation of this region is different in children who struggle with handwriting.

After children are taught to print they start to use their brains as adults do for processing written language, even though the children are still at a very early level as writers.

Typing letters doesn't generate the same brain activity as doing it by hand (Image: Getty)

For developing young children, typing the letters doesn’t seem to generate the same brain activation as writing letters by hand.

As we grow up, and in my case grow older, most of us transition to keyboard writing, but it shouldn’t be too soon.

Studies on note taking have suggested that “college students who are writing on a keyboard are less likely to remember and do well on the content than if writing it by hand,” said Dr Dinehart.